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Cathedral Peak 08/2017

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It was a popular weekend climbing at Tuolumne Meadows in the summer of 2017.  I was with Amber, Paul, and Chris and we were wanting to climb some of the classics. We slept in our cars by Tioga lake and woke up early to head for west crack, a super classic 5.9 on DAFF dome.  We got to the base at 8am and there was only 1 party ahead of us - could have been worse! We flake the rope, rack up, get ready, and then wait for the team of 4 to get ahead.  We noticed their style was … unusual to say the least.  only 1 of the 4 were familiar with trad climbing and instead of limiting the group size or using multiple ropes with cowtails or a few different effective methods, they decided the leader would go up with 1 rope, the 2nd would follow but not clean the gear, the 3rd would pinkpoint the route, and then the 4th would follow and clean the gear.  Then and only then can the leader rack up again and do the same thing over again.  The first pitch involves a 5.9 move with a bolt right at the be
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JMT Roller Coaster Section - 07/2019

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2019 was a heavy snow year and I had planned an early season trip which I had never done before.  Up to the time I picked up my permit, I was nervously reading about trip reports and snow conditions and my findings were stark and grim.  The consensus was that everything above 10,000' was mostly snow and the section I had planned was a 5 day trip from South Lake to Onion Valley which is often referred to as the "roller coaster" section of the John Muir Trail because 12,000' mountain passes scattered the trail every 10-15 miles or so. If you would look at the elevation analytics, it was look like repeating arches going from 8,000' to 12'000 back to 8,000' over and over again. This trip was the first year I had actually made an effort to go ultralight.  I was mentored from an old school backpacker (my Dad) from the 1970's wearing 65 pound packs with heavy boots.  But here it was in 2019, I was pretty late to the scene, but I started minimizing my pack
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Charlotte Dome 08/2018

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Chris, Paul, and I were all gathered together on a Friday afternoon at the permit issuing ranger station in Lone Pine, Ca. as giddy as can be for our climbing trip.  But where were we going?  We had talked about a plan A, B, then C depending on where there were permits to.  Maybe temple crag, maybe mt. sill, maybe bear creek spire, but who knows.  The unknown aspect made me even more excited. After finally speaking with the ranger, we had learned of the possible options and we had decided to go BIG and do Charlotte dome.  But we could only get a Saturday night permit meaning we'd have to somehow squeeze the massive trip into two days. We sat outside on the benches and made a game plan.  We decided to hike in early Saturday AM with camping gear and hike straight to Charlotte Lake to drop it off, then we'd continue to hike to the base of Charlotte dome and do the climb and descend back to our camp.. all on Saturday... Then Sunday, we would sleep in then hike out.  Seemed to w
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Owen Spalding Route - 07/2016

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I first starting living in southeastern Idaho in September of 2009 to go to college.  I lived just outside of a tiny town called Tetonia with a population of 248. There were beautiful creeks and rivers, hills and plateaus, forests and farms. But best of all from every angle you can see the Grand Teton, Middle Teton, South Teton, and Mt. Moran.  It was absolutely gorgeous and I was determined to climb them all one day. I ended up living in differents areas of the state such as Idaho Falls, Boise, Burley, and I even spent a summer in Yellowstone where I climbed up a 3rd class route up middle teton. Eventually it was July of 2016, I had a newborn baby girl and had plans to move to Los Angeles to live permanently.  I'm writing this in January of 2020 and I have not been back to Idaho since then.  I had told myself that after staring at this beast of a peak for 7 years, I needed to climb it by whatever means necessary.  I had waited until the last minute and was desperate. I rea
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